PBL help

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

rachmoninov3

Senior Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2004
Messages
895
Reaction score
24
This is not a PBL rant, but rather I'm in need of advice. It's the end of my first year, and the med school is pushing my class harder as far as PBLs go. Before the tutor's would make us go through the case, but by the end we'd always have a diagnosis to go to Harrison's with. Now, there's no definitive diagnosis, and we're left with researching all of our differentials...once we even looked up the wrong diagnosis (SCLC instead of NSCLC!)

OK, so overcoming all this uncertainty is what will make us good doctors, I can see that. HOWEVER, IT'S VERY TIME CONSUMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Does anyone have a quicker way of doing this than going through every single differential?

any advice is appreciated.

Members don't see this ad.
 
Narrow the ddx based on positive and negative findings, create a rank order list of possibilities based on the findings and assess relative likelihood.

Unfortunately PBL is not based on reality so it probably is lupus this time.
 
Buy a ink cartridge and print the crap out of UpToDate. I've found it to be much more efficient in pursuing DDx's than Harrisons. Maybe not as thorough on the mechanism of pathology, but much more thorough on the clinical presentation and sensitivity/specificity of the according tests.

Unfortunately PBL is not based on reality so it probably is lupus this time.

The one medically-relevant fact to come out of House. It's always lupus!
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I thought the whole point was to learn **** along the way. It doesn't really matter if you get the right diagnosis in PBL, just that you actually look up and read about every damn thing you come across. Thus the horrible inefficiency that is problem based learning.
 
Top